Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Astronomy is a natural science which is the study of celestial objects (such as stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets and nebulae), the physics, chemistry, and evolution of such objects, and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth, including supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. A related but distinct subject, cosmology, is concerned with studying the universe as a whole.

History of astronomy:

Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of pre-history: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy, and not completely disentangled from it until a few centuries ago in the Western World (see astrology and astronomy). In some cultures, astronomical data was used for astrological prognostication.

First astronomers

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543, Polish) began a new era of astronomy when he concluded that the Sun was the center of the universe instead of the Earth. Copernicus felt that the Ptolemaic system was contrived, but in his revisions of that model, he kept the orbits circular. The revolutionary idea was not popular with the Church.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642, Italian) is the father of observational astronomy. In 1609, he heard about the Dutch invention of the telescope. Even though his telescope was not very powerful compared to the amateur equipment available today, he was able to make a number of stunning discoveries which changed the face of astronomy.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630, German) was Tycho Brahe's assistant and student. He inherited his teacher's extensive collection of astronomical records, and used them to develop three laws of planetary motion. He believed in the Copernican model of the universe, although he found it difficult to fit Tycho's observations of Mars into the model with a circular orbit.

Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712, Italian) was the astronomer who first discovered the division in the rings of Saturn, today known as the Cassini division. He also found four moons orbiting Saturn, and measured the periods of rotation of Mars and Jupiter.

Robert Dicke (1916-1997, American) believed that it was possible to detect radiation left over from the Big Bang. He invented the microwave radiometer to detect this radiation, which has a wavelength of one centimeter.

Conclusion about the astronomy: Astronomy is the science of space beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Opinion.

Sebastian Chavez A. : in my opinion the astronomy is a very important topic for space. I think that physic, chemistry and astronomy are the most important science to explore and know all about the universe.

Karla Yunnuen: my opinion is that the astronomy is a very interesting topic to investigate because all the astronomers have been discover very important things of the universe.

Roberto Serrano Querejeta

In my opinion the astronomy is very important because the astronomers discover new planets galaxy's and more.

Astronomy is a naturalscience which is the study of celestial objects (such as stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids and comets), the physics , chemistry , and evolution of objects, and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543, Polish) began a new era of astronomy when he concluded that the Sun was the center of the universe instead of the Earth. Copernicus felt that the Ptolemaic system was contrived, but in his revisions of that model, he kept the orbits circular. The revolutionary idea was not popular with the Church, but several other astronomers such as Brahe and Galileo helped to eventually prove that this model of the universe more accurately portrayed reality.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601, Danish) built an observatory from which he made the most accurate astronomical observations up to that time. His observatory contained sophisticated equipment for mapping star positions, and for more than 20 years he made detailed records of his findings. He believed that the universe was a blend of the Ptolemaic and Copernican models, and created his own model in which the planets orbit the Sun and the Sun orbits the Earth.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642, Italian) is the father of observational astronomy. In 1609, he heard about the Dutch invention of the telescope, and built one for himself. Even though his telescope was not very powerful compared to the amateur equipment available today, he was able to make a number of stunning discoveries which changed the face of astronomy. He saw the craters, mountains, and valleys of the Moon, noticed the huge number of stars making up the Milky Way, kept precise records of sunspot activity and the phases of Venus, and discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter. These moons are still called the Galilean Moons today, in honor of the earth-shattering scientific effects of the discovery. During a time when the Earth was still considered to be at the center of the universe, he publicized the fact that other astronomical bodies, such as Jupiter's moons, were clearly revolving around something other than the Earth. Galileo's support of the Copernican model of the universe frightened the Church, which put Galileo on trial in 1633. He was forced to renounce his Copernican views and was held under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630, German) was Tycho Brahe's assistant and student. He inherited his teacher's extensive collection of astronomical records, and used them to develop three laws of planetary motion. He believed in the Copernican model of the universe, although he found it difficult to fit Tycho's observations of Mars into the model with a circular orbit. He therefore used the idea of elliptical orbits to describe the motions of the planets, which became known as Kepler's first law. His second law states that a line from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal amounts of time. The third law was a masterpiece of simplicity: the square of the number of years of a planet's orbital period is equal to the cube of that planet's average distance from the Sun.

Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712, Italian) was the astronomer who first discovered the division in the rings of Saturn, today known as the Cassini division. He also found four moons orbiting Saturn, and measured the periods of rotation of Mars and Jupiter. The Cassini space mission currently on its way to Saturn was named after him.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727, British) was a mathematician who developed extensive mathematics to describe the astronomical models of Copernicus and Kepler. His Theory of Universal Gravitation was the foundation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion, but it also went further: Newton showed that the laws governing astronomical bodies were the same laws governing motion on the surface of the Earth. Newton's scientific ideas are so complete that they still offer an accurate description of physics today, except for certain cases in which 20th century physics must be used.

I think that astronomy is a very important science because it maintain us Informed about what happens outside in the universe and if we didn't knew it we would ignore things outside from the earth believing in what the church say.

Astronomy is a natural science which is the study of celestial objects, the physics, chemistry, and evolution of such objects, and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth, including supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. A related but distinct subject, cosmology, is concerned with studying the universe as a whole.

Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of pre-history: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy, and not completely disentangled from it until a few centuries ago in the Western World. In some cultures, astronomical data was used for astrological prognostication.

Ancient astronomers were able to differentiate between stars and planets, as stars remain relatively fixed over the centuries while planets will move an appreciable amount during a comparatively short time.

Early cultures identified celestial objects with gods and spirits. They related these objects to phenomena such as rain, drought, seasons, and tides. It is generally believed that the first "professional" astronomers were priests, and that their understanding of the "heavens" was seen as "divine", hence astronomy's ancient connection to what is now called astrology. Ancient structures with possibly astronomical alignments probably fulfilled both astronomical and religious functions.